In my mind, I still picture this as the archetype of an office’s boss inside a boss’s office. If it doesn’t have the 4th breaking wall picture, then it’s a fake boss
See, a real boss, ready to work for the greater good
FATHEERRRRRRR!!!
Chris Morris is a legend. I love Matt Berry but Morris is legitimately one of the most influential figures in British comedy.
The Day Today and Brass Eye put him on the map.
Jam is one of those shows that I doubt many people outside the UK would really get.
Jam is one of those shows I doubt many people inside the UK would get.
Ps: that’s how you know that J. Jonah Jameson wasn’t the boss at the daily Bugle, there was no self referential picture
I’ve watched IT Crowd half a dozen times.
I haven’t managed to finish an episode of BBT before I switch it off in disgust.
In other words, you have insufficient data to make a meaningful comparison.
It is amazing to me how people believe their subjective experiences automatically qualify for criticism.
I mean this is Lemmy. 98% of the people here believe that anyone who downvotes them is a Nazi and a fascist, plus whatever negative adjective you could think about
This place was way better before the exodus from reddit.
For sure it’s no contest. Did you see that ludicrous display last night?
Cooper always tries to walk it in.
People be forgetting that the first season or two of the big bang theory was legitimately very good.
The first season or two of the IT crowd was… oh yeah, the whole show.
IT crowd’s best episodes were best-in-class. tnetennba. But it had a lot of meh too.
The thing about the IT crowd is they always try and walk it in
I’ve only seen the one episode of BBT, I think the first one, where a goddamn theoretical physicist spends a whole day forgetting the basic properties of light.
My family stared at me the whole time, expecting me to find it funny. Then THEY got mad at me when I said that was the dumbest shit I’ve seen in a while. Later I found out that Sheldon uses Ubuntu and brags about it.
But, okay, dumb jokes aside - the show doesn’t explore any concepts or situations in new and interesting ways And THAT’S why it’s bad.
Shelden uses linux. Hahahaha. That’s it. A good writer could make a whole episode about that, alone, and it would be hilarious. Imagine him on internet forums. Imagine him fumbling during a talk because his laptop wouldn’t work with whatever vidchat/system/software his hosts used, and getting haughty about it. Imagine Sheldon traveling across the country to “fix” an entire auditoriums tech to run on Arch after his failed remote speech. Walking away all “You’re Welcome” as the staff can’t figure out how the fuck to use it.
Funny, but now you’re talking about the layman being cut out. Ratings won’t survive and it dies after one season. But that would be better lol
I mean, the IT Crowd ran for 5 seasons while actually being funny to people working in the field it portrays, unlike Big Bang Theory which many nerds (not just physicists) find un-funny
As a science nerd I think BBT is very funny, even when the writers make such glaring errors as having Sheldon stop his self-destruct device just before its countdown reached zero - even though he modeled it after Star Trek, specifically referenced a TOS episode the self-destruct was featured in, and even used the same password. Any true Trek fan knows the Enterprise self-destruct was unstoppable after the countdown reached 5 seconds - a fact that comes up in the very episode Sheldon mentioned. A deplorable writing error, to be sure, but I think such things are amusing in their own way.
The only remotely objective measurement I know is that enough people enjoyed the show to make it last 12 seasons. Y’all are welcome to your own opinions, but all the absolutist pontificating is pretty silly. There’s no Kelvin scale of funny.
IT Crowd is hysterically funny as well, but it’s written differently (not correctly or wrongly, just different) and was written and performed for a different audience, in a different country. There’s really no point arguing which was funnier.
“I’ve only seen the one episode…”
Sheldon: “You certainly put a lot of effort into expressing an opinion you’re woefully unqualified to form.”
IT Crows was amazing, I laughed to death. Where the bigbang theory was not so funny, too much detail IMO.
IT Crowd was three British goofballs doing elaborate running gags over 24 episodes.
BBT was four creepy bigots and a nice blonde woman doing pop culture references and calling one another stupid for 279 episodes before spinning out an 80s nostalgia prequel series.
It was the difference between a few cherished cleverly crafted comedy routines and endless derivative slop.
Next season might turn out to be IT Pigeons
I warmed up to BBT after watching Young Sheldon. all the criticisms of BBT still stand but for some reason I just wasn’t miserable watching it. had a few laughs even.
By far. I think that Big Bang Theory has rotten the minds of lots of highschoolers (that now are at university, or have already graduated)
I loved both shows. IT crowd made me laugh harder making it the better show.
Young Sheldon on the other hand was very very good.
I remember IT Crowd as having some really funny moments back when I watched it, but also being very hit or miss. Looking back, the episodes with the theater gays and the trans woman were… deeply unfortunate. Also it turned out Graham whatshisface is a full-time transphobe. So it’s consigned to the trash bin for me.
BBT, I never saw more than a few episodes and what I did see was very bland tbh.
TL;DR maybe they both suck actually
Not disagreeing that Linehan has some awful opinions and that has leached out into a couple of his writings. But, the theater episode, at no point, makes the fact that people are gay the butt of the joke it’s the main characters that are terrible people in that episode, particularly Roy.
It’s like getting upset that Father Ted is racist for the episode that specifically makes racists the target of the joke.
Not at all. My issue was with the portrayal of the characters themselves – so vapid, touchy-feely, and simply stereotypical of the “theater gay” trope. Plus, after all her opining, whatshername was right about that guy’s orientation.
Also, I found the theater material a bit, uhh… it felt to me like a Rocky Horror parody written by an adolescent person. Yes we’re all singing “I love willies” because that’s what being gay is about, yahaha.
big bang theory is about what dumb people think smart people are like.
bbt is blackface
Reddit ass comment
Not true. Blackface can be funny.
This is a charged topic that needs grace and nuance to do right. When blackface is done with the input, support and consent of the black community, it can re-open discussions about how black identities continue to be co-opted by white media.
Tropic Thunder is a great example of blackface as social commentary.
Sarah Silverman did it, too, as…I think a statement on stereotypes? There were levels there but I don’t think they were intentional.
Tropic Thunder had input, support, and consent of the black community?
I don’t believe it was, no. I said what I think should be done, not necessarily how things have been done.
I still think Tropic Thunder did it well, since it’s not making fun of black people, it’s making fun of how out of touch white people can be. I’m basing that off what Brandon T Jackson and other black performers have said about it in the years following its release.
Anyone down voting you never saw tropic thunder or did and have no sense of humor, probably think big bang theory is banging.
It’s just a dude dressed up like a dude, pretending to be another due.
apologies for the pixels, I stole it from reddit
I wouldn’t say dumb people. It’s a caricature, much like Dennis the Menace is a caricature of small children in a quiet, suburban neighborhood. Only Big Bang Theory wasn’t based on an existing comic. So more like Friends being an unrealistic caricature of a late-20’s/early-30’s group of people living n NYC.
Entertainment doesn’t always have to be authentic.
So more like Friends being an unrealistic caricature of a late-20’s/early-30’s group of people living n NYC.
Actually a pretty good comparison given how awful Friends is.
Yes, it’s a horrible caricature, Henry Cavill is basically the template for most geeks these days.
Big bang theory is about nerds.
Also, BBT stayed entertaining for the most part throughout the 8 or so seasons it was on. IT started great and then dropped to “meh”.
How can you stay entertaining when you were never entertaining in the first place?
Oh look, a dumb person.
Calling a person dumb because they like watching sitcoms is like saying Gordon Ramsey isn’t a chef because he likes fast food burgers.
The Big Bang Theory was frustratingly bad.
Saw a critic call it, “Nerd blackface”
IT crowd is about nerds for nerds. Big Bang theory is about nerds for non nerds. “Nerd blackface” is more succinct though.
Blackface is a bit more complicated and disturbing than “pretending to be like a black person for comic effect.” I don’t think it’s appropriate to compare it to to depictions of nerd culture.
It’s what stupid people think smart people sound like. I’ve never been able to watch it, but I remember hearing Sheldon brag about Ubuntu being his favorite Linux distribution? Like, can you imagine someone saying that in a room of Linux nerds?
It’s stupid and disrespectful to geeky people, but it’s not perpetuating harmful and violent narratives.
brag about Ubuntu being his favorite Linux distribution we? Like, can you imagine someone saying that in a room of Linux nerds?
H-hey!
I think the comment was also made by Sheldon? Sheldon’s character should be the kind of person who chews people out on forums for not reading the Arch Linux wiki, or to launch into the “GNU/Linux” copy pasta reflexively when Linux is brought up.
But that would require them to have more then a surface level understanding of the culture they’re making fun of lol.
Why???
can you imagine someone saying that in a room of Linux nerds?
Ironically, that would be hilarious.
Amazing
perfection.gif
Omfg, that describes it adequately.
I saw some clips on YT where they removed the laugh track.
It’s really hard to find the show funny when they take out the bit where it tells you when to laugh.
I hate laugh tracks.
I watched and enjoyed TBBT, but I don’t rewatch it. I saw one of these videos with the laugh track removed and was honestly surprised at how awkward the show was without it. It didn’t change the fact that I liked it when I watched it though.
It’s mostly awkward because suddenly you have long times of silence normally occupied by the laugh track. If it was intended to be without a laugh track there wouldn’t be awkward silence.
Yeah, I’ve wondered what it’d be like if someone did one of those laugh track removal experiments, but re-edited to remove the quiet parts
This is kinda off topic, but there’s a show called Kevin Can Fuck Himself that plays around with sitcom tropes, wife and I enjoyed it a lot.
Fun fact. That show was filmed in front of a studio audience.
Although I don’t know if they augmented the audience with canned laughter in post.
Same with Friends and most shows with laugh tracks
I’ve seen that. Cringeworthy.
It got so popular, had occasional Star Trek references, even a cameo by Leonard Nimoy, and I still couldn’t get myself to enjoy it. It’s such a a shame.
My grandparents used to watch it. I think it had one (1) funny moment I saw in all the show’s run that I caught when living with them - when Neil DeGrasse Tyson calls up Bill Nye and says “I hear you’ve been talking shit about me”, and Nye immediately hangs up the phone in abject terror.
Their cameos in SGA were funnier. “Way to make all the kiddies cry neil, feel like a big man??”
I watched a lot of it back in the day and by like season 10 (I have no clue how long it ran) I realized it was super boring and bad. There would be jokes as lame as “dude owns a Nintendo 64”. That was the entirety of the joke.
Also there is a long running arc about a main character who is physically incapable of talking to women unless he is intoxicated (aka alcohol).
At some point the “humour” was just pop culture references.
is this not comedy gold?!
In the beginning it was kinda funny. But it went downhill pretty fast, got super cringe regarding the guys trying to get girlfriends, then the creepiest one of the lot gets one. Just ugh.
I like to say that Big Bang Theory was a stupid show about smart people, and Arrested Development was a smart show about stupid people.
Yes, it’s the “Friends” of it’s era - the comedy is in the laugh-track, I mean studio audience.
watched it, it was okey lol. don’t put too much thinking in it
No explanation necessary:
This changes my perspective on the entire show… I’m going to have to watch it again for the 152nd time with this in mind now.
I might require some explanation.
Autism.
Masking is a strategy used by some autistic people, consciously or unconsciously, to appear non-autistic. While this strategy can help them get by at school, work and in social situations, it can have a devastating impact on mental health, sense of self and access to an autism diagnosis
Oh shit, I’m a high masker.
Getting through the day be like:
Subject: Fire. “Dear Sir stroke Madam, I am writing to inform you of a fire which has broken out at the premises of…” No, that’s too formal. “Dear Sir stroke Madam. Fire, exclamation mark. Fire, exclamation mark. Help me, exclamation mark. 123 Carrendon Road. Looking forward to hearing from you. All the best, Maurice Moss.”
0118, 999, 881, 999, 119, 725…3.
Mid AF over here.
Oh good. I first thought this was some racist image editing joke based on skin colour. And everyone was happily going along with it.
I love this so much.
This image?
The show?
“Yes!” 💯
If he’s low masking, how did he just have a chat about that ludicrous display last night?
Id be tempted to swap jen and roy tbh
Because, similar to blackface in its time, people love to point and laugh at exaggerated caricatures of something different from themselves.
And CBS airs lowest common denominator garbage that the masses devour.
The term you’re looking for is minstrel shows https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minstrel_show
BBT is a minstrel show to humiliate smart people, anti intelligence sentiment is high in America
Except for that one transphobic episode that Graham Linehan has ruined his whole life over instead of going “Yeah, I’m sorry, that was a bit insensitive.”
EDIT: since I don’t want the top reply not to mention this, fuck IT Crowd creator Graham Linehan for the incalculable damage he’s done to innocent trans people. He’s a worthless, disgusting bigot.
Honestly, I always found that episode… Weirdly progressive? Even maybe by accident? Consider the following:
- The trans woman April is legitimately physically attractive and with a distinctly feminine voice to match.
- She’s a legitimately very sweet, intelligent, and earnest person.
- She tells Douglas upfront in no uncertain terms that she’s trans (she phrases this as “I used to be a man”, but honestly, considering both 2008 and the fact it was used to setup a joke, I think this isn’t too transphobic? A trans person in 2008 might’ve even said this because there was less of a support network to understand that you always were a woman.)
- Douglas gets upset because he thinks he’s been tricked, but 1) he absolutely was not, and the episode makes this crystal clear that it’s because April made every effort and he’s just an absolute dumbass, and 2) Douglas has been portrayed in the show to this point as nothing but a juvenile, overdramatic, chauvanistic sack of shit, and we’re clearly not supposed to be rooting for him.
- She’s a fantastic girlfriend and becomes the love of his life. A big part of this is because she has a duality between traditional femininity and an interest in traditionally masculine activities, but I also don’t think this is terrible representation? I have a trans woman friend who carries herself in a traditionally feminine way but hasn’t dropped more traditionally masculine activities that she grew up enjoying.
- She throws the first hit at the end, but this is after Douglas dumps her on the spot after they’ve hit it off, had sex, and confessed their love for each other because he was too stupid to listen, he tells her to get lost, he basically calls her gross to her face by talking in a disgusted tone about “that operation you had”, and flat-out denies her existence as a woman.
- It’s made very evident that if Douglas weren’t transphobic, he could’ve lived the rest of his life with a woman who’s established to be literally perfect for him.
Wait THAT’S the trans episode that everyone says is super-transphobic? In the context of being released in 2008 it’s perfectly fine. There’s probably be a few things that should be different if it were made today (and honestly, its been a few years since I’ve seen it so I might be not remembering some important yikes moment or something) but my takeaway was always that Douglas is still an asshole and April is an amazing woman who can do so much better than him
Edit to add: Honestly far worse is the Aunt Irma plotline. Most of the jokes are that “haha these guys are acting like girls” and that plot honestly kinda fell flat because of it
Honestly I think the only way it could have been less transphobic was to actually have a trans woman play the role? The woman that played April was quite fetching. And seemed like a pretty fleshed out person and not just a punchline. It would have been just as easy to find some beefy guy to put in a dress with bad makeup. Make a complete bigoted caricature. But they didn’t. Matt Berry’s character was always the butt of the joke. And in totality in the end still missed her. Honestly short of having a trans actress portray the character it really was one of the most positive and Progressive portrayals ironically at the time. Though I’m sure that has more to do with the staff involved then it does lineham himself.
100% agree. It paints trans women favorably and makes Douglas the asshole like he deserves.
Yeah, it’s kind of a Death of the Author moment. Ignore Glinner being a transphobic ogre and it’s actually quite good.
Glinner is the biggest argument I’ve seen against Death of the Author, because once you know you’re supposed to be laughing at the marginalised character and with the characters mistreating them, it’s impossible to find it funny.
There’s lots of examples of it too. The first time watching the theatre trip episode where a judge in drag opens the play, I’d read Roy’s discomfort with the show being “too gay” as a joke on Roy being out of his element; we were supposed to laugh at his discomfort. But on rewatching it’s hard to shake the idea that actually Roy’s defence of “I don’t want his sexuality rubbed in my face” is meant as something the audience is supposed to identify and agree with, and that far from being a knowing playful nudge at gay theatre the whole thing was a mean-spirited caricature of it. The meaning does get changed whether Roland Barthes likes it or not.
Douglas ruined a great relationship because he just couldn’t stop himself being a transphobic bigot. Pity Glinner didn’t learn any lessons from his creation.
I’m a ciswoman and I actually love April’s ass-kicking. I’m sure it was meant to be a dig at her femininity but it’s the first time in media where I felt like, yes. This is exactly how I want my gender displayed.
And her actress was gorgeous.
The fandom has universally decided that douglas did hear her correctly and still did not care and they lived happily ever after
Linehan has become much worse since that controversy, he’s been on a proper trans hate crusade since like 2019. It wasn’t about being insensitive, he’s completely deranged and the episode was just an early slip.
Absolutely. I can’t know what has gone wrong inside him, but even if this particular brainworm was eating him up 20 years ago, he could have just said something vaguely apologetic and let it blow over. Instead, he decided a trans hate crusade was more important than his family or his career.
Wow, I just looked him up on Wikipedia and you’re right. It’s way more than just producing a sitcom episode. Dude is legit on a crusade.
That episode aired in 2008 and I think a little self-reflection would have went a long way to getting people to forgive his mistake.
Only problem is, we now know it wasn’t a mistake, it was deliberate, because he’s extremely transphobic. To the point where he is now better known as an anti-transgender activist than a (former) writer.
The IT Crowd and Father Ted are genuinely brilliant, too bad Graham is a total dickhead.
He doubled down exponentially because he can’t be wrong.
Which episode?
Edit: oof
Series 3, episode 4, “The Speech”. Sadly, it’s also the episode where they convince Jen a box with a flashing red light is the Internet, but it has a subplot where Reynholm un-knowingly dates a trans woman. He finds her stereotypically masculine behavior attractive until he finds out she is transgender and a physical fight erupts between them.
It’s not even on the upper end of offensive comedy about trans people, but when the episode was criticized, Linehan doubled down and has kept doubling down harder for 20 straight years, to the point where he now spends all of his time harassing, dead naming and doxing trans women on Twitter. His wife left him, writing jobs dried up, he’s just a miserable has-been Twitter checkmark asshole now.
Honestly, I found the episode pretty hilarious. And it was’nt even really offensive towards trans women. I always thought the joke was more on Douglas’ fragile ego than anything else.
But yeah, sucks what’s become of the author.
I also thought the joke was about fragile masculinity… but I can see it being off putting anyways and I’m open to being wrong.
It is interesting to compare screenrants analysis to this reply here.
The IT Crowd creator has stated he does not believe trans women are women and that transgender rights oppress women.
I wanted to make some quip about it being typical but actually not all men think this way or assume they know what women think. And I’m sure some women think this way. But it also tells me all I need to know about this tool. Good riddance.
What it means is that the writer is closer in personality to Douglas than the rest of the cast. And that’s telling.
It was long after the reunion which I realized this and I feel ashamed for all times I’ve rewatched the series since.
